Staying or Going for the Same Exact Reasons

As promised (or threatened) here is a closer look at why those within the Fellowship of Presbyterians, which includes many of the largest congregations in the denomination, will most likely leave the PC(USA) pretty soon after this year's General Assembly. This is my take on it based on my reading of the documents produced by the Fellowship and based upon my conversations with good friends who self-affiliate with the Fellowship. A majority of churches will still remain in the PC(USA), some simply because it is a lot easier to stay than to leave. For a great number of churches and individuals, however, there are deeper reasons for their wanting to stay. I will discuss those briefly as well.

One of the main reasons that The Fellowship folks are leaving is because they have seen the drastic decline in PC(USA) church membership over the past 50 years or so and that has, understandably, caused them to come to the realization that the PC(USA) is dying. In my own experience I have now served as a pastor in three congregations. The first congregation average just 35 worshippers, down from about 80 or so back in the “good old days.” The second congregation, where I was an Associate Pastor, has declined from average worship attendance of 350 to less than 250 in just the past decade alone. Here at FPC there was a time that many of you remember, when this congregation had 300 in worship. Last year the average was 94. A lot of us who serve as PC(USA) pastors have had times when we’ve felt like we were just here to keep the doors open for a while longer. That’s not how I feel here, by the way, and our average is back up to 142.

More evidence is that there is a large number of PC(USA) congregations that have gotten so small that they cannot afford a pastor. This has caused congregations to have no pastoral leadership and it has also caused a lot of recent seminary graduates not to be able to find a position. There are a lot more PC(USA) pastors than congregations big enough to afford to pay them a wage commensurate with someone with a Master of Divinity degree, not to mention a family. Many in the Fellowship don’t want to be a part of a dying denomination anymore. “We age, shrink, and become increasingly irrelevant. Is it time to acknowledge that traditional denominations like the PC(USA) have served in their day but now must be radically transformed?” They’ve got a point.

The second main reason, and the most convincing in my opinion, is that “outside of presbytery meetings, we mostly exist in separate worlds, with opposing sides reading different books and journals, attending different conferences, and supporting different causes. There is no longer common understanding of what is meant by being ‘Reformed.’” The way I often put this when I’m talking about not

being able to see eye-to-eye with someone is to say, “We seem to live on different planets.” There really are books that one group loves that the other group wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. There are conferences and retreats that one group wouldn’t be caught dead at while the other group swears by it. One group reads Christian Century magazine because Christianity Today is for uninformed conservatives, while the other group reads Christianity Today magazine because Christian Century is for heretical liberals. The Fellowship says, “our divisions revolve around differing understandings of Scripture, authority, Christology, the extent of salvation amidst creeping universalism, and a broader set of moral issues.”

There are definitely two groups within the PC(USA) that live “on different planets.” My friends that are involved in The Fellowship of Presbyterians have expressed to me that what has happened is that one of those two groups, the “liberals,” has taken control of the denomination. This “takeover” has been so pervasive that my friends in the Fellowship do not feel welcome in this denomination anymore and do not feel like they belong anyway. Some have gone so far as to say that the PC(USA) is in a state of apostasy, which means “falling away from or renouncing the Christian faith.” The vast, overwhelming majority of Fellowship folks do not share that extreme view of the PC(USA), however. They just disagree with stances that have been taken by the denomination that include an increasing openness to homosexuality as naturally occurring as opposed to sinful, an increasing openness to interreligious dialogue and work with adherents of other faiths, especially Muslims, several statements and actions that seem to side with the Palestinians against the Israelis, a perceived tendency of PC(USA) mission work only to meet the physical needs of people without sharing the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ with them, and an unwillingness to define what beliefs are essential for a Presbyterian to hold. Those in the Fellowship disagree with the direction their denomination has headed and are tired of fighting so they want to leave the PC(USA) to start something new. A common way of justifying this is to say, “We aren’t leaving the PC(USA); the PC(USA) left us.” Haven’t you ever disagreed with something so much that you couldn’t be a part of it, that you felt that you had to leave in order to have a clear conscience?

Like often is the case, many of the reasons that the folks in the Fellowship want to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) are the very reasons that a great number of Presbyterians want to remain in the denomination. For many the very reasons that they are living out their Christian faith within the PC(USA) is because it tends to be more open and accepting than judgmental in regard to people who are both homosexual and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Openness to dialogue and work toward the common good with their neighbors of different faiths is a plus to a lot of people. Seeing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspective of the Arab-Palestinian minority (many of whom are Christian, not Muslim) makes complete sense to many Presbyterians, as does the PC(USA) emphasis on social justice instead of conversion. The reason that I have heard most often for why people consciously chose the PC(USA) is precisely because the PC(USA) allows diversity of theological and moral beliefs as long as a person can truthfully say that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior. Once again, the reasons that cause some to want to leave are the very same reasons that make many want to stay. Funny how that works, isn't it?

The question I want you to think about this week is not why do you like or dislike the Presbyterian Church (USA), but why do you love the First Presbyterian Church of Washington Court House or whatever your home church is? Whatever your views on this topic or that, strive to live a life this week in which everything you do, in word or deed, is done in the name of Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God through him.

May your week be filled with the peace and the joy of the Lord, even in the tough times. Especially in the tough times.

Peace,
Everett

This Way or That Way?

As I mentioned last week in my post, as we approach the 2012 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) I am going to write about some of the very significant issues that will be taken up during that week in Pittsburgh. Some of you may know all this already, and some may not care in the least. Others of you, though, may not know yet and may be interested in what is happening in our denomination on a national level. I will do my best to offer a balanced presentation of what is going on, although I will at times state my opinion or stance and when I do so I will clearly delineate between what is happening and what I think about what is happening in regard to the PC(USA) and General Assembly. Just as a reminder: General Assembly meets every two years and is made up of ruling elders and teaching elders (pastors) from every presbytery (regional governing body) that have been elected by their presbytery to represent them as commissioners. As I mentioned last week, Dick Glass and Charlotte O’Neill are both among our presbytery’s commissioners this year.

The biggest issue facing this General Assembly is the looming, and almost certain, schism of the Presbyterian Church (USA). On January 7, 2011, a “white paper,” was published by a group of seven PC(USA) teaching elders (pastors) declaring their views of the current state of the PC(USA) and listing some options for dealing with the problems within the denomination. According to Wikipedia.com, a “white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and may be a consultation as to the details of new legislation. The publishing of a white paper signifies a clear intention on the part of a government to pass new law.” This document was then followed up by a “Letter to the PC(USA)” that presented these concerns and suggestions to a wider audience. This letter has come to be known as the “Deathly Ill” letter because it begins with these words, “To say the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is deathly ill is not editorializing but acknowledging reality.” The seven teaching elders who published this letter are predominantly pastors of large Evangelical churches within the PC(USA). You can read the "Letter to the PC(USA)."

After the “Letter to the PC(USA)” presented this group’s concerns and suggestions to the denomination and was published in numerous denominational media outlets, those who agreed with the statements made in the letter were invited to sign their name to it, not unlike what was done with our nation’s Declaration of Independence back in 1776. If you sign it you are showing your solidarity and saying, “I’m willing to stick my neck out for this and if the writers’ necks get chopped because of this so will mine.” That letter has since been signed by 1,562 individuals within the PC(USA), made up mostly of teaching elders and ruling elders. Some groups that are well represented within that list of signers are pastors of many of the PC(USA)’s largest congregations, and a very large number of leaders within the Korean Presbyterian congregations in our denomination. A few of those 1,562 signers are very good friends of mine, as well as some of them being seminary classmates of mine. This group within the PC(USA) began to refer to themselves as “The Fellowship of Presbyterians” and held a large gathering of more than 1,000 people in
Minneapolis this past August to feel things out and decide on a course of action.
Based upon the findings of that gathering, they met again in Orlando in January for a kind of “constitutional convention” to begin working toward forming a completely separate denomination from the PC(USA) that they are calling the Evangelical Covenent Order or ECO.

The hope of many within the Fellowship of Presbyterians, as I understand it, is that the General Assembly will take steps that will allow for congregations that wish to do so to be dismissed from the Presbyterian Church (USA) to the Evangelical Covenant Order. There are some real challenges to that actually happening, however, so some congregations have decided to go ahead and leave the PC(USA) to be dismissed to an existing denomination called the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The thought is that these congregations will join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church for the time being then when everything shakes out with the Evangelical Covenant Order those congregations will leave the EPC to join the ECO. Many within the Fellowship of Presbyterians do not like that plan, however, because they disagree with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s stance on the ordination of women. The EPC allows each congregation to determine whether or not women can be ordained as deacons and ruling elders and up to each presbytery as to whether or not women can be ordained as teaching elders (pastors). The folks in the Fellowship of Presbyterians, like other members of the PC(USA) believe that women and men are called by God to all offices of the church and that is non-negotiable. The overwhelming majority of those involved in the Fellowship of Presbyterians do not want to be affiliated with the EPC, even for a short time, and therefore are working toward being dismissed directly to the new denomination that is being formed (ECO).

Immediately after the white paper and letter were published, many of the message boards on Presbyterian websites were filled with posts about how the Fellowship of Presbyterians was made up entirely of rich white male pastors of large conservative churches. That is certainly true of the original seven authors, but not of the 1,562 signers that came after. There are a great number of women (pastors and not) and as I mentioned earlier a large number of Korean-American church leaders. There are representatives of large churches and a great number of representatives from small churches. In my personal opinion, most of the original negative responses I read focused solely on the gender, race, and church size of the authors of the letter instead of the actual issues discussed within the letter. It is kind of like our contemporary political culture on both sides of the aisle: attack the messenger instead of discussing the message. Over time, however, some more intelligent and articulate responses were offered to the Fellowship's documents.

I really wanted to talk about the issues in the letter so in the weeks after the white paper and letter, a friend of mine, also a PC(USA) pastor, and I sat down several times for coffee to discuss the matter. He decided rather immediately that he would sign the letter to grant his full support, and encouraged me to do the same. Another friend of mine had encouraged me in that direction as well. Truthfully, I agreed with nearly everything the Fellowship of Presbyterians was saying about the disconnect between many of the stances taken by our national leadership and what is actually believed by the majority of members of Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations. I agreed with their critiques of the encumbrances of bureaucracy in church government, as well as many of their statements in regard to theology, mission, and evangelism. But I was not as eager or resolute as my friend about signing on.

Everybody has their “line in the sand,” their “deal breaker,” their “straw that breaks the camel’s back.” Whether or not we say it out loud, we all can say, “If this happens, I’m out of here.” We have that in friendships and marriages, organizations and churches. For instance, “If my friend and my spouse develop a romantic relationship, I’m out of both the friendship and the marriage.” We have this in political parties. “If the Republicans raise taxes I’m becoming an independent” or “If the Democrats give up their emphasis on social programs I’m out.” And we all have that with our church as well. Different people draw their lines in the sand in different places. For some the line is drawn at the use of screens in worship. “If we ever start using screens in worship I’m out of here.” By the way, if that’s you then your line in the sand is about to be crossed this Sunday. For others it is, “If the pastor ever claims that Jesus wasn’t fully human and fully God then I’m out of here.” For another it might be something else. We all may like to say, “I’m sticking with this church no matter what,” but that’s not really true. Not that I ever would, but what if I started preaching that racism is sanctioned by God? What if the session and I declared all infant baptisms invalid and required that everyone be re-baptized? What if I decided to sing all of my sermons way off key, which is the only way I could sing them? How about if there was abuse of children and not only that but it was covered up? We all have our line in the sand, our deal breaker, our straw that breaks the camels back. Over coffee I learned that my good friend’s line had been crossed by the Presbyterian Church (USA); he found that although I agreed with most of what the Fellowship of Presbyterians was saying that my line had not been crossed. So he decided to sign onto the letter and I declined.

So that gives a decent overview to the recent developments within the Presbyterian Church (USA) that have a bearing on whether or not there will be a significant split in the denomination in early July or soon thereafter. Next week we will get into the specifics of why many want to leave, but also why many want to stay. I think you will find that many or most folks on both sides of these varying issues hold beliefs that are based upon their determination to do the right thing as a Christian and as a Church. They just disagree vehemently on what the right thing to do is.

Don’t forget to wear red for Pentecost Sunday! Go forward to love and serve the Lord!

Everett

Our Presbyterian Church (USA) Family

The 2012 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) will be held this July, not too east of here in Pittsburgh. Our own Dick Glass will be there in an official capacity as commissioner. He will be joined in that capacity by several others including our former interim pastor, Rev. Charlotte O’Neill. Since Pittsburgh is fairly close I will be driving over July 3-4 to peruse the exhibit halls for new curriculums and ministry ideas, to network, and to catch up with colleagues from Indian Nations and Cimarron Presbyteries and classmates from Austin Seminary. I will have no official responsibilities whatsoever, and I, for one, am okay with that. Over the next month or so I will write some blog posts about General Assembly and about some of the issues that are on the docket for this meeting. I may even try to get some point/counterpoint guest bloggers to help us understand both sides of a few of the issues. Before I get there, though, I want to just say a little bit about the Presbyterian Church (USA), the denomination of which our congregation is a member, and to say a few things about presbyteries in general and our presbytery, Scioto Valley Presbytery.

When I was eight-years-old my dad married my stepmother. When my parents had been married, my dad, mom, my two older sisters and I were involved in a United Methodist Church. As is often the case when there is a divorce and subsequent remarriage it was difficult for my dad and stepmom to feel comfortable in the church family that my dad and mom had been a part of. That is unfortunate but it is completely understandable. My stepmom, along with my older stepbrother and stepsister, were involved in a church in a different town called Yeamans Park Presbyterian Church. Since my stepmom’s ex-husband had never been a part of that church there wasn’t the awkwardness there so we all started going to the Presbyterian Church. I was there pretty much every Sunday from the age of eight to thirteen, when I moved away to live with relatives. I don’t remember all that much about those years except gathering in a circle outside on the church lawn with our lit candles on Christmas Eve (you can do that in coastal South Carolina), a lesson about Moses in Sunday school, a week at Bethelwoods Presbyterian Camp, and the pastor during all those years, Rev. Bill Neely. He told good jokes and he tried to help my family in the midst of some real difficulties.

About nine years later, in my early twenties, after a stop in a Southern Baptist church and several years of inactivity, my new bride and I decided to find a church home. I decided to visit the Presbyterian church in the town we were living in because of those four memories from my childhood in a PC(USA) church, especially because of how Rev. Neely had treated our family with grace, mercy, and understanding. We found a home in that church, The First United Presbyterian Church of Guthrie, Oklahoma, and it was through that church that I received my call to the professional ministry. Cimarron Presbytery supported me in that call and I attended a PC(USA) seminary in Austin, Texas. God used Yeamans Park Presbyterian Church and Rev. Neely to plant seeds of faith in me, First United Presbyterian Church in Guthrie, Oklahoma and Cimarron Presbytery to call me into my life’s purpose, Austin Seminary to prepare me for that purpose, and FPC Newkirk, FPC Norman, and FPC WCH as families of faith whom I can serve and love, as well as being served and loved by them. I love the Presbyterian Church (USA); it is a part of who I am and God’s plan for my life. I do not always agree with some of the stances taken by the PC(USA), but that doesn’t change the fact that I love this branch of Christ’s Church.

The first presbytery I was a part of is called Cimarron Presbytery, encompassing the northwestern corner of Oklahoma. It is, I believe, the smallest presbytery in the number of churches. Cimarron has only thirteen churches, albeit some of them as many as six hours apart. For a frame of reference, our presbytery, Scioto Valley, has 108 churches. Everybody knew everybody in Cimarron, which was one of the advantages. We didn’t really have enough people or resources to do much, however. I remember fondly my days in Cimarron. The people there are like family to me in a lot of ways. The second presbytery I served in is called Indian Nations, which encompasses about fifty churches in the Oklahoma City metro area (similar size to Columbus) as well as in southwestern and south central Oklahoma. Unfortunately Indian Nations has been dysfunctional for decades and remains highly divided into certain camps that war it out at just about every presbytery meeting. I really liked a lot of the people there but I absolutely hated going to presbytery meetings there because it was like going to a Hatfield and McCoy joint family reunion. While in Indian Nations I tried to be a part of the solution by serving on the Presbytery Council and attempting to serve as a bridge builder between “camps” but sometimes even when you build a bridge it just sits there unused while the people on both sides move a little further downstream so they’ll have an excuse to keep throwing stuff over the river at each other instead of meeting in the middle of the bridge.

When I came to the Presbytery of Scioto Valley I expected it to be like Indian Nations. But when I got here I met Rev. Jim Browne of the Hilliard Church and Jeanne Harsh, the acting executive presbyter. I met Rev. Stephen Moulton at Parkview PC, where I preached for our pastor nominating committee during the interview process. I even found out that one of my favorite colleagues of all time, Rev. Charlie Smith, with whom I had worked in Cimarron Presbytery is the pastor of 2nd Presbyterian in Newark. At the first presbytery meeting I attended, there was some heated discussion but it was much more civil than Indian Nations. This past Tuesday, I attended my second presbytery meeting, and it wasn’t just civil, it was—dare I say it?—loving and grace-filled. The church in South Salem had asked to be dismissed from the PCUSA to become an independent community church and after hard work from a presbytery administrative commission, which included our own Jennifer Pieratt, the presbytery voted unanimously to allow that to happen graciously, with minimal payout to the presbytery, and even with our blessing on these brothers and sisters in Christ and their newfound direction in ministry. One candidate for ministry was confirmed in her call and moved on to the next stage in the process, while another was approved as ready for ordination. In addition to all that, the presbytery council, which includes our own Dick Glass (who also preached in the presbytery’s worship service), made suggestions on how to streamline the organization structure of our presbytery (music to my ears!).

I know that many in this congregation do not have the fuzziest feelings for our presbytery because of the way many feel this congregation was treated in regard to a severance payout to a former pastor and because of the alleged embezzling of funds by the former executive presbyter, who had also been a part of that severance negotiation. It is completely understandable for folks in our church to have been upset with our presbytery, or more accurately one or two individuals in leadership roles in our presbytery, because of how things went down over the last several years. It does not make sense, however, for our congregation to continue in any sort of adversarial or dismissive stance toward our presbytery, which I always remind people is not "they" but "we."

This Sunday I will be preaching at the First Presbyterian Church in Norman, Oklahoma for their Senior Recognition Sunday. I was honored to have been asked back by that congregation to participate in that service with twelve graduating seniors who I love like my own family members. Just the fact that they asked me back and that this congregation not only allowed me to go but blessed and encouraged me to go, shows the connection between two PC(USA) churches that are two very different congregations but that share a bond as sister churches. Please don’t take this Sunday as your Sunday off since the pastor won’t be here to notice you’re gone. I know people do that because I have done it once or twice in my life. We have great momentum going in this church and I don’t want that to slow down every time I go out of town, which will make me more and more hesitant to take very important vacation and study leave time. Come be a part of the service led by my new friend Jeanne Harsh, the acting executive presbyter who is one of the kindest, most caring, and funniest people I’ve come across in a long time. She is doing a great job and graciously agreed to preach God’s Word to this church while I’m out of town preaching God’s Word in Norman. She is excited to worship with you all.

I love the Presbyterian Church (USA), both as it exists as First Presbyterian Church in Washington Court House and as the larger denomination, and I hope you do too. As I mentioned earlier, God raised me up, called me to my life’s purpose, and has given me a loving family of God’s people all through the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Blessings on all of you and I’ll see you when we get back!

If You Don't Work on Sundays, You Don't Work Here

This past Sunday we had everything but the kitchen sink in our worship service—children’s choir, recognition of graduating seniors, reception of confirmands, a baptism, and communion. Also, I tried preaching from a minimal outline so I could get out from behind the pulpit for a change. Looking back on it this past Sunday was probably the worst possible Sunday to attempt that because what would have been a short twelve minute sermon if I would have had my usual manuscript became seventeen minutes long, and even with that I forgot to bring something up that I really wanted to mention. Oh well, this week I’ll be back to the manuscript and maybe I’ll try a few different things this summer. But before I turn to working on this week’s sermon, which will be on the final appearance of the Risen Jesus in Matthew, which appears in chapter 28:16-20, often called the “Great Commission,” I want to say what I forgot to say this past Sunday in worship.

How many of you reading this blog post ever go out to eat for lunch on Sundays? I am raising my hand on this one too. How many of you run out to Kroger or Wal-Mart to pick something up on Sunday afternoon or evening? Let's be honest, people of other religions or no religion aren’t supporting Sunday commerce by themselves. Don't get defensive yet, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, although as I’ve mentioned in a previous post we should all assess whether or not everything we do on Sundays now is worth what we lose in rest and worship, but to consider a group of people that are affected (and who quite often benefit greatly) from our Sunday commerce. I’m talking about all the people who have to work on Sundays. There’s waiters and waitresses, cooks, retail salespersons, truck drivers, nurses and nurse’s aids, doctors, gas station attendants, cashiers and baggers, and so on.

For a while before I went to seminary I was a sales associate at a Dillard’s Department Store, which is a lot like Macy’s. When the manager was hiring me and we started to work out my schedule I said, “I don’t work on Sundays because of church.” He said something like, “I can respect that. None of us want to work on Sundays, but if you don’t work on Sundays then you don’t work here.” I acquiesced and he compromised by only scheduling me for every other Sunday. Just finding another job wasn’t an option. I’d just lost a job and Danielle was finishing up school at Oklahoma State. Getting a job that didn’t include work on Sundays wasn’t an option. I wanted to be in worship with my church family on Sunday mornings, but I couldn’t. We can lament the loss of the way things used to be, but this is life in the 21st Century, folks. It's time to live in reality.

Here are some snippets from conversations I’ve had with four different people lately:

Someone said something to this effect to me recently, “When I worked in the restaurant industry, I could almost never be at church. I wanted to be there. I wanted to worship, but Sundays are when the money is made at restaurants. So I went years with barely ever getting to worship.”

"I want to become a member of this church. My family is so excited about the ministry and worship here that I want to be a part of it." Great, I responded. "But I work almost every single Sunday," the person responded. "Am I still allowed to join?" Hmm... What does it mean to be a member of a church when you can never participate in worship? I wondered.

"If I always took off Sundays I'd never have Saturdays off, which would mean I'd never get to go to my kids' ballgames."

When invited to get involved with this church one person responded, "I can't be in worship because of work, unless there's another worship service in the evening sometime."

These brothers and sisters in Christ, and those who might be invited into faith in Jesus Christ and participation in the church, who have to work on Sunday either most of the time or all the time, have been on my heart lately. In light of Jesus' commission to Peter in John 21, I've been asking myself, "Are we feeding these lambs of Christ's fold? Are we taking care of these sheep of Christ's flock?" Or are we leaving them to find their own pasture saying in essence, "You can be a part of this church when you get a different job." I'm not saying that I have any answers, only questions.

I've been on the Austin Seminary alumni Facebook page asking what other churches are doing to minister to these brothers and sisters in Christ (or potential). It seems I'm not the only one who is struggling with this. One church has started a small Saturday evening worship service. Another has done the same on Sunday evening. One church has an "express" service at 7:30 am on Sunday morning. Other pastors are trying to get their church leadership to stop thinking of Sunday or Wednesday as the only options. There's five other days of the week, those folks are reminding their leadership. Some of these ideas are working. Some aren't. At least churches are thinking about it.

In our Presbyterian Book of Order we read that "Christians have received the Lord’s Day (Sunday) to be kept holy to the Lord. It is the beginning of the believer’s week and gives shape to the life of discipleship. Disciplined observance of this day includes preparation of one’s self for...public worship... acts service... re-creating rest." Then it says, “In observing this discipline, Christians whose work takes place on Sunday should set aside another day of the week for these observances.” Fair enough, but how is someone who works on Sunday supposed to set aside another day for public worship when public worship only occurs on Sunday, especially Sunday morning?

Again, I don't have the answers to this but I think we really need to start prayerfully considering the predicament and talking to folks who work on Sundays to see what they think. As we do that I want us to remember a few things and practice these in our lives.

(1) Don’t judge people who have to work on Sundays. To the person who would say, “you should get a different job then,” I’d invite you to come up to the food pantry on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, to meet all the folks who can’t find a job or are under-employed and then try to make the case to someone that they should leave their good job because it requires them to work on Sundays. Especially these days, and particularly in this part of the country, when you have a decent job you stick with it and pray to God that you can keep it.

(2) Commend people who fulfill their responsibility to provide for their family. In his first letter to Timothy, Paul writes, “And whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” For a growing number of people that takes place on Sunday.

(3) Stay in communication with people who work on Sundays. They need communication with the family of faith more than anyone who can be here on Sunday mornings. They need to know that they are valued members of this congregation. Sitting and listening to a sermon online or reading a blog, while they may be helpful, are not a good substitute for being in the actual presence of the family of faith gathered together to worship God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

(4) Start thinking “outside of the box” with me about how to “fish in a different part of the lake” and “feed these lambs and take care of these sheep.”

May the Holy Spirit grant us the peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as we attend to the duties of life this week with joy in our hearts.

Pastor Everett

Fortunate Son

I just finished reading a book entitled God is Red: The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China. It is written by Liao Yiwu who is an author who chronicles the struggles of different groups of people under the communist government. He has had plenty of run-ins with his government because of his opposition to communism. He is not, himself, a Christian but became interested in the story of Christianity in China and how Christians have suffered for their faith in his country. The book basically

consists of a mix of the history of Christianity in China and transcripts of his interviews with different kinds of Christians in different areas of the country. It was a very hard book to read and took me longer than a 270 page book usually would. It wasn’t hard because of the translation but because of the subject matter. I can only read so many pages a day of personal accounts of beatings, imprisonments, public disgrace, and executions. It wore me out emotionally. You’ll hear more about this book this summer in my sermon series on the Book of Acts and how the Church is made manifest in different parts of the world these days.

Something else this book did for me, in addition to wearing me out, was to make me thankful that I live in the United States. I often hear people say, “We’re the best country in the world.” Personally, I can’t speak to that as I have never been to any other country, let alone to every other country in the world to be able to determine if we’re the best, but I do feel I am very fortunate to live in this nation. The other day, as I was close to finishing the book I felt the compulsion to go by an American flag for the manse, which I did. For one, that big porch just calls out for a flag waving in the wind, and secondly I felt in that moment very thankful for where I live. Don’t get me wrong, I am not naïve, nor am I patriot with blinders on. I might not feel all that great if I had just finished a book like Roots (about slavery), Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (the history of the West from a Native American perspective), Nickel and Dimed (about the trials and travails of the American working poor) or even The Help (a novel dealing with the Jim Crow laws). But when I finished God is Red I felt pretty good, so I mounted the flag and decided to take the dog for a walk.

It was about 7:30 pm, the sun was descending slowly in the west, and there was a stiff cold wind, too cold for late April in my opinion. As we often do when we have a chance to go for a walk while the sun is still out, my dog, Eli, who is a yellow Labrador Retriever, and I headed down to the paved trails that weave through Eyman and Washington Parks. I plugged my earphones into my iphone and turned on some Garth Brooks. Like I said, I was in an American mood, and what says American more than some good ol’ Garth Brooks, right? As we walked, we passed ball fields filled with girls and boys practicing softball and baseball. Coaches hit grounders to waiting fielders as the next kids in line blew on their non-glove hand to keep it warm so they’d be ready to make the throw to first base.

Memories of twelve seasons of baseball flooded my memory and my body tensed each time I heard the ping of the ball popping off the bat. I was ready to field a grounder, to make that throw, to hear the pop of the ball hitting the glove. We continued walking alongside Paint Creek where geese and goslings floated in the water. After a long walk we finally returned home, climbing up onto the porch on our scarlet and gray stairs beneath the stars and stripes flowing in the cold wind. The best word that can describe how I felt in that moment is grateful.

Our nation is not perfect. We have many skeletons in our closet and we have a lot of problems right now like unemployment, national debt, 1 in 5 children being in danger of going to bed hungry each night which is ironically coupled with an obesity epidemic, and a tragically high incarceration rate,

just to name a few. But even with all those scars and blemishes, I am so incredibly thankful to live here, grateful for the freedoms I enjoy.

This Thursday is the National Day of Prayer. On that day, at noon, let each of us say a prayer that we too often save up for the 4th of July, a prayer of thanks to God for the lives we enjoy, and a prayer that our nation would have a common life together that is based upon the dignity of all persons (there is a community gathering at the court house Gazebo Thursday at noon as well). And let us pray for our Christian brothers and sisters who experience persecution wherever that occurs. Let us educate ourselves about their plight and ask God to deliver them and to give them strength to endure until that freedom comes. We owe it to them to be grateful for our experience of what they long for, and we owe it to them to pray for them. We also owe it to them to do everything within our power to work toward religious freedom throughout the world. I am usually very hesitant to mix my Christian faith with my patriotism as I think that too often Christians get Uncle Sam and Jesus mixed up, but that book helped me to realize just how good I have it here. If you don’t feel fortunate to live here then come by my office sometime and I’ll loan you my copy of God is Red, and that might help you have a moment of gratitude like I did.